


Awakening - Before The End

by thechavanator



Series: Trinity [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, despite this not even being a shippy fic series, i also have no idea how rating systems work??????, i hate tagging systems for fanfic i'm so BAD at it, in which sora hints at my personal shipping preferences, thank god for THAT tag god
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 08:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechavanator/pseuds/thechavanator
Summary: A boy with no purpose, a would-be hero, a worrywart, two caretakers, and one amnesiac muse about where life is taking them before the same story we know veers slightly off course.Or; a prelude to the end.





	Awakening - Before The End

**Author's Note:**

> A few months ago, I saw one of the very first trailers (if you can call it that) for Kingdom Hearts and wound up pondering how the series might be different if one of the bits of dialogue in the trailers had a different impact in the story than what actually wound up happening. I then wound up bitching about Kairi's total wasted potential and accidentally rewrote the entire idea. And now it's my Camp NaNo project.
> 
> In order to properly prepare for Camp NaNo and exercise my writing muscles - and honestly. just because I started writing it in my head at work and didn't want to waste it - I wrote a few little drabbles on some important moments/thoughts of some important characters.
> 
> Some preliminary notes about this AU in particular: First, Organization XIII as we know it isn't really a thing, and without the Org operating as it does in canon, Xion really has no reason to have that X in her name? She's Shion here as a result.
> 
> Secondly, I had most versions of Neverland ruined for me by a group of very talented college students (now graduates), so I changed a few things. (Why weren't John and Michael there to begin with???) Full credit for Michael's outfit goes to them, because it's the greatest thing I've ever seen.
> 
> The rest...well, you can wait a month, right?
> 
> I'm adding on to this soon; I started on some stuff about the Radiant Garden gang, I have some ideas about the destiny islands trio's families that I wanna write, and I have a few other Ideas floating around.
> 
> (edit 7/1/2017: I LEFT OFF LIKE TWO PARAGRAPHS AT THE END HOW DID THAT HAPPEN ugh goddammit past self. that's here now.)

Sora didn’t really plan on leaving the island.

Of course, Sora didn’t really plan on anything. Not like Kairi, who spent days in the library researching the wildlife in the oceans of their home in pursuit of her eventual marine biology degree – or even, as Riku’s wanderlust infected the three, researching the possibility of ways to escape. Not even like Riku, who planned a heroic life as an adventurer for as long as his friends could remember but was only now really starting to _work_ for it. Had Kairi never arrived, and Riku never found a real justification for his urge to run away, Sora would have just…went with whatever life threw at him.

It’s not just that Sora was the type to go with the flow. He also generally had no direction. Or sense of purpose. Or any sort of overarching life goal. A Lost Boy in the truest sense of the word, one of Wendy’s brothers would later call him. (John, he thought? Or was it Michael? Wait, not Michael, he was like four and wore a dinosaur costume. John, then.)

It wasn’t until the islands were but a memory and Sora woke up in a faraway world with a weird key in hand that he really found a dream, or drive. As Leon regaled him with tales of the mythical Keyblade (the sole weapon that could kill Heartless, only one in the universe, etc etc), Sora found his true calling.

Clearly he was meant to be the hero! To save the universe, get the girl (or boy? or both? was that allowed?) and live happily ever after! And with that, Sora took off on an epic adventure.

It’s best not to build your dreams on fractured fairy tales and misremembered myths. The dreamers, as Sora would soon discover, fall the farthest.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

An image here, a sentence there – Kairi’s memories of her old life in that quiet town were scattered and few, and never seemed to come at a good time. Like now, for instance.

_She stood, small and sheepish, looking up at the very tall (by her standards) blue lady (A-something, she thought) and her huge sword. Key. Sword-key? Whatever. The woman smiled down at little Kairi. “You’ve got a lot of courage, don’t you, little one? It’ll serve you well when you’re a Keyblade wielder like my friends and I!”_

_Kairi giggled, a high-pitched little noise (considering she was four at the time). “I hope mine’s as pretty as yours!”_

_A-something chucked. “I’m sure it will be, little warrior.”_

A cute little memory. It would have been a lot more convenient had she not been surrounded by the shadowy monsters that had plagued her in that memory only moments before.

It also would have been convenient if she could call bullshit on Leon’s whole ~ _one mystical keyblade to rule them all_ ~ deal, but alas, communication from one heart to another is a little hard when you don’t really have a mouth.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You can sense her presence, can’t you?” So because shadowy monsters weren’t enough, Riku was probably being haunted. Sinister, disembodied voices weren’t really on his agenda for their great escape.

Then again, neither were those shadow monsters – “Heartless,” aforementioned disembodied voice had supplied as he surveyed the damage. Riku couldn’t even see the beach underneath the monsters, an endless sea of black bordering the actual sea.

Ah, wait, there _was_ something; a spiky brown head peeking up above the monsters…fighting them off? How?

And on top of that, a feeling that Kairi was there.

“So you do feel it,” the voice purred. “Her body is no longer with us.”

“ _No,_ ” Riku muttered, “I thought she was just _invisible_.”

“So you _do_ have some bite in you.” The voice paused. “Your friend’s heart rests with the boy. Surely you can find a way to persuade him to release her.”

Sora, for what it was worth, seemed to have no idea what Riku was talking about. And no sooner had the brunette finished talking than the world been swallowed up.

Riku woke up by a shadowy castle, no Sora in sight. Now two friends had been lost. How could he turn down the help of one who knew how to walk among these Heartless?

(The third friend, it turned out, was long gone.)

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door slammed open, jolting Naminé from her sketch. She glanced up to see her younger sister, Shion, standing in the doorway, eyes wide and long black hair starting to shake loose from the usual ponytail.

“He’s awake.”

The sketchbook was left forgotten as the duo raced to the basement.

They made their way through the ridiculous mansion they currently called home and reached the makeshift hospital room their foster father (well, caretaker was more accurate; their actual dad was probably somewhere out in the stars) had built for their guest, a blond boy who looked to be fourteen (their age now) who hadn’t woken up once since they found him.

He hadn’t seemed to age a day, either, seemingly frozen in time.

Now, however, the boy was far from frozen, struggling to sit up on his bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Naminé approached cautiously, gently placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Hey, good to see you’re up.”

He panicked.

Naminé wasn’t really surprised by this, of course; unfamiliar surroundings coupled with strangers would panic her, too. Or anyone.

“You’re in our basement,” Naminé began, “and our…father has been watching over you, with our help, of course.” (She _hated_ calling the man her father; Diz was alright, really, but she missed her real parents. And either way, trying to explain “we were stranded here after monsters destroyed our world and who knows where our parents are” to someone who barely even knows where he _himself_ is would not end well.)

Shion took this opportunity to step forward, presenting the boy with what promised to be a _very_ firm handshake. “The name’s Shion; Naminé here is my sister. And you are?”

The boy seemed to stare straight past her, ignoring her outstretched hand, before responding with a very quiet “I don’t know.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roxas really didn’t remember a lot.

If asked, he’d say he had remembered nothing in the five years since he’d awakened – in fact, Roxas was just a name he came up with on the spot so Shion would stop calling him Blondie. And perhaps that was true, because he couldn’t really remember much during the day.

But lately, these weird dreams had been plaguing his mind.

Dreams of grand adventures, of places he’d never believe existed, of giant tea parties and mermaid kingdoms and soaring through the air aboard a pirate ship. And above the pirate ship, for that matter. (And puppies. Endless amounts of puppies.)

And perhaps the weirdest, a vivid dream of looking up at himself, in strange clothes, wielding what appeared to be the thoroughly distressing love-child of a sword and the inside of an old clock, jagged and spiky at the end where most swords Roxas had seen were streamlined and pointy.

Granted, most of the swords Roxas had seen were fencing foils Shion used when sparring with her fencing club, but he was positive that pretty much all swords looked like that.

Roxas had come to accept that he wasn’t really gonna figure out his past, from before he fell asleep and woke up as a strange person in a strange town. He was perfectly content with his foster sisters, and hanging out with Hayner, Pence and Olette, and living his day to day life without sparing many thoughts for his long-lost former life.

Why was all this happening _now?_


End file.
